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MATH 167: Precalculus (Sections 1 and 2)
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Assorted class resources for your enjoyment:
Class newsletters!:
Day-by-day goings-on:
- Monday, August 22nd. First day of class! We will spend most of this day getting to know each other and laying out a plan for the ways in which we'll work together this semester.
- Wednesday, August 24th. We begin our study of precalculus in earnest. Here are some notes on Section 1.1.
- Thursday, August 25th. After finishing our discussion of the coordinate plane, we continue our exploration by introducing relations and functions, the topics at the heart of Section 1.2.
- Friday, August 26th. We continue with the notes from Thursday, on relations and functions.
- Monday, August 29th. After finishing off our discussion of functions, we start talking about linear functions specifically, the topic of Section 1.3 of your text.
- Wednesday, August 31st. More on linear functions; take a look at the notes posted for Monday!
- Thursday, September 1st. We continue talking about linear functions and their use, with these notes on Section 1.4 of your text.
- Friday, September 2nd. We continue with the notes from Thursday, and spend a little time talking about how we want to handle the "newsletter" project we'll be working on together for the rest of the semester.
- Monday, September 5th. Labor day: no class!
- Wednesday, September 7th. We work on solving linear equations and inequalities, the topic of Section 1.5 of your text.
- Thursday, September 8th. We finish up solving linear equations and inequalities and may begin talking about the shapes of graphs more generally, the topic of Section 2.1 of your text.
- Friday, September 9th. We'll definitely get underway talking about the shapes of graphs; see the notes from the previous day!
- Monday, September 12th. We continue with the notes from Section 2.1; see the link given above!
- Wednesday, September 14th. Today it's all about shifting graphs, the topic of Section 2.2 of your text.
- Thursday, September 15th. We talk about other means of modifying graphs today, stretching, shrinking, and reflecting, the topic of Section 2.3 of your text.
- Friday, September 16th. More stretchin' and shrinkin'. See the notes from Thursday!
- Monday, September 19th. An in-depth look at the absolute value function is in order; this is the topic of Section 2.4 of your text.
- Wednesday, September 21st. I will be out of town; no class!
- Thursday, September 22nd. We will continue talking about equations and inequalities involving absolute values; see the notes from Monday. After wrapping that topic up, we'll briefly consider piecewise functions more generally, the topic of Section 2.5 of your text.
- Friday, September 23rd. We wrap up our discussion of piecewise functions and begin talking about compositions of functions, and other operations on functions, the topic of Section 2.6 of your text.
- Monday, September 26th. More on compositions of functions, working off of the notes from Friday.
- Wednesday, September 28th. In order to conduct a thorough analysis of polynomials, we'll need to know all about complex numbers, the topic of Section 3.1 of your text.
- Thursday, September 29th. We finish up our introduction to complex numbers, and then start talking about quadratic functions, the focus of Section 3.2 of your text.
- Friday, September 30th. More on quadratic functions! See the notes from Thursday.
- Monday, October 3rd. We continue talking about quadratic functions, looking at equations and inequalities, the topic of Section 3.3 of your text.
- Wednesday, October 5th. After finishing up our discussion of equations and inequalities involving quadratics, we'll look at some applications of quadratic polynomials, the topic of Section 3.4 of your text.
- Thursday, October 6th. We may spend a few more minutes on applications of quadratic polynomials, but before long we should begin talking about higher-degree polynomials, the topic of Section 3.5 of your text.
- Friday, October 7th. Higher-degree polynomials: see the notes on Section 3.5 from Thursday.
- Monday, October 10th. Fall Break; no class!
- Wednesday, October 12th. We continue our analysis of higher-degree polynomials, finishing off the last set of notes (see last Thursday!).
- Thursdsay, October 13th. We begin our work with the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra, the Rational Roots Theorem, and polynomial long division, all contained in Sections 3.6 and 3.7 of your text.
- Friday, October 14th. More work with the previous set of notes!
- Monday, October 17th. We'll look briefly at solving polynomial inequalities and related applications, the topic of Section 3.8 of your text.
- Wednesday, October 19th. We begin talking about rational functions, the topic of Section 4.1 (and beyond!) of your text.
- Thursday, October 20th. Let's look at rational functions in more detail, analyzing them along the lines of Section 4.2 of your text.
- Friday, October 21st. We continue with the examples on the handout from yesterday!
- Monday, October 24th. Let's look at a few problems in which we must solve equations and inequalities involving rational functions, the topic of Section 4.3 of your text. (For Mathematica's rendering of the cans we created in the second example in class today, you can use this notebook.)
- Wednesday, October 26th. We consider the basics of power functions and root functions, the topic of Section 4.4 of your text.
- Thursday, October 27th. Now let's look at some applications of root functions, involving equations and inequalities! This is the topic of Section 4.5 of your text.
- Friday, October 28th. Let's do one more application involving roots and rational functions, optimizing the shape of an ice cream cone. (See also this Mathematica file.)
- Monday, October 31st. We begin talking about inverse functions, the topic of Section 5.1 of your text.
- Wednesday, Novmeber 2nd. My morning class will meet (we'll just do some simple problems together), but my afternoon class will not; I will be out of town! So sad...
- Thursday, November 3rd and Friday, November 4th. No class! I will be out of town. Please use the free time to work on your exam, which is due on Friday by 5:00 p.m.
- Monday, November 7th. We talk about exponential functions, the topic of Section 5.2 of your text.
- Wednesday, November 9th. More on exponential functions! See the notes from Monday.
- Thursday, November 10th. Yet again, let's continue talking about exponential functions, today focusing on their applications. See the notes from Monday, and this Mathematica notebook on population modeling.
- Friday, November 11th. No class! I will be out of town. Please think about coming to class anyway, in order to use the time to talk about your birdhouse building.
- Monday, November 14th. We talk a bit about logarithmic functions, the topic of Section 5.3 of your text.
- Wednesday, November 16th. We continue with logarithmic functions, and should begin talking about more specific applications of same, the topic of Sections 5.4 and 5.5 of your text.
- Thursday, November 17th. Continue with the set of notes posted on Wednesday!
- Friday, November 18th. We will meet in Carmichael Hall, Room 132, to discuss Mathematica, using this introductory Mathematica notebook!
- Monday, November 21st. We begin talking about the elements of trigonometry, surveying angle measure, the unit circle, and circular functions, all topics of Sections 8.1 and 8.2 of your text.
- Wednesday, November 23rd through Friday, November 25th. No class! Thanksgiving Break!
- Monday, November 28th. Back from break, we continue talking about the circular functions on the unit circle; see last Monday's notes.
- Wednesday, November 30th. No class! Please take time today to support your friends and classmates as they present their work in the Fall Undergraduate Research Symposium.
- Thursday, December 1st. We finish finding some fundamental values of the circular functions (see the last set of notes) and set about graphing these suckers, the topic of Sections 8.3 and 8.4 of your text.
- Friday, December 2nd. We polish up our circular functions' graphs.
- Monday, December 5th. We talk a bit about how to apply these functions to problems involving triangles...trigonometry at last! (Notes from sections 8.6 and 8.7 to come soon...)
- Wednesday, December 7th. Scheduled final exam times: 8:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. for Section 1, and 11:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. for Section 2. Come! We'll have food and fun!
"Cool Math" links and files:
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